Butterbean On Bart Gunn, WrestleMania XV, DDP and Fighting To Get His Life Back
Eric Esch built a combat sports career around a name nobody could forget and a punch few opponents could withstand. Known as Butterbean, the “King of the Four Rounders” became a boxing attraction before crossing into kickboxing, MMA and professional wrestling.
Appearing on Wrestling Life with Ben Veal, Butterbean revisited his matches with Marc Mero and Bart Gunn, the WWE career he chose not to pursue and the personal comeback that has changed his life in recent years.
How Eric Esch Became Butterbean
The name began with a Toughman contest. Esch weighed around 420 pounds but needed to reach 400 to enter, so he ate butter beans and chicken while trying to lose the weight. Spectators began chanting “Butterbean” and the nickname stuck.
He was working in a factory when he first decided to try the local contests. Soon, he was winning fights and discovering how much he loved the reaction to a knockout.
Butterbean says people often underestimated the work behind his unusual look. He had been bullied as a child, and knew opponents might judge him before the first bell.
“I don’t look like an athlete, but I trained harder than most guys in the boxing ring ever did,” he said.
Butterbean’s WWF Match With Marc Mero
Butterbean’s first major WWF appearance came through Marvelous Marc Mero, whom he knew through a mutual friend at Everlast. Mero pitched the idea of a match to Vince McMahon, bringing the boxer into one of wrestling’s biggest periods.
Their 1997 encounter at In Your House: D-Generation X produced a moment Butterbean can still laugh about. A stool used to strike him was supposed to break on impact, but the wrong stool was picked up. When the first blow failed to break it, Mero hit him twice more.
“You’ve got the adrenaline, the crowd going,” Butterbean recalled. “You don’t really feel the pain until later.”
He enjoyed adapting to wrestling’s particular kind of competition. The result of a match might be decided in advance, he explained, but performers still wanted their work to be the most memorable thing on the show.
Vince McMahon encouraged him to wrestle more regularly, though Butterbean preferred to keep building his career as a fighter rather than commit to the travel.
What Happened Against Bart Gunn at WrestleMania XV?
Butterbean returned to the World Wrestling Federation in 1999 to face Bart Gunn, the unexpected winner of the WWF’s Brawl for All tournament, at WrestleMania XV. Their fight ended in a knockout after roughly 35 seconds and remains one of the event’s most talked-about boxing crossovers.
Butterbean stressed that Gunn was a tough opponent who had earned his place in the fight. He believes Gunn might have fared better by attacking as he had throughout the tournament. Instead, Butterbean felt Gunn tried to box with him, while he approached the contest with the urgency he had learned in three-round Toughman fights.
He also shared his understanding of why WWF arranged the bout. Butterbean said he had been told Gunn’s tournament victory upset the company’s plans, but acknowledged that he could not know for certain what decisions were made behind the scenes.
Despite the result, the two have spoken many times since. Butterbean said he respects Gunn and wishes WWF had made more of the momentum he gained by winning the tournament.
“They should have pushed him instead of pushing me on him,” he said.
The Comeback That Changed Butterbean’s Life
The toughest part of Butterbean’s story came long after WrestleMania. He described a period when he weighed more than 520 pounds, used a wheelchair and felt he had given up hope.
“I got to looking out the window just waiting to die,” he shared in the conversation. He had stopped wanting to be seen and did not even attend his induction into the Alabama Boxing Hall of Fame.
A conversation with Diamond Dallas Page helped him begin making changes. Butterbean said he had lost 60 pounds before travelling to work with Page’s team. He later had both hips replaced and can now walk, spend time with his grandchildren and take on everyday jobs that once felt out of reach. DDP Yoga has also documented his return to mobility in the series Change or Die.
“I definitely have my life back,” Esch said, reflecting back on his journey of personal transformation.
Seeing others respond to his experiences has given the comeback another purpose: Butterbean says people have contacted him since Change or Die to share how it encouraged them to make changes of their own.
Butterbean Wants One More Fight
Butterbean would like to fight again, partly to prove to himself how far he has come. He even named Iron Mike Tyson as an opponent he would love to face, though no fight was confirmed in the conversation.
For a man once known above all for putting opponents down, the achievement he speaks about most passionately now is getting back on his feet. “I lost that belief and I got it back,” he said.
About Wrestling Life Online
Wrestling Life Online is a digital platform dedicated to celebrating the personalities, history and human stories behind professional wrestling. Through in-depth interviews, editorial features and the annual Wrestling Life Hall of Fame, it honours performers whose impact extends far beyond championship reigns.
Wrestling Life with Ben Veal shines the spotlight brightly and positively on those who shaped wrestling's past, drive its present and influence its future. The show features honest, open and inspiring conversations with many of the sport's biggest names and is presented by award-winning journalist and content creator Ben Veal, co-author of Marc Mero's bestselling autobiography, Badd To Good: The Inspiring Story of a Wrestling Wildman and author of Good Journeys: 25 Inspiring People & 75 Lessons Learned.
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